


Know When to Hold 'Em

by Skitz_phenom



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-31
Updated: 2010-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-14 06:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skitz_phenom/pseuds/Skitz_phenom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a really random idea that popped into my head after watching the House MD episode "House vs. God" when it originally aired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Know When to Hold 'Em

Tax Accountant Guy looked over the table at Dry Cleaner Guy, eyebrows raised expectantly. “Well?”

Dry Cleaner Guy’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

“That.” A hand flung out towards the kitchen where aggressively hushed voices could be heard sniping back and forth. “You owe me fifty bucks.”

Dry Cleaner Guy scoffed. “You think ‘that’ is enough to prove you right?”

Tax Accountant Guy nodded.

“So they’re having an argument, so what? That doesn’t mean anything. Friends fight all the time.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.” Tax Accountant Guy retorted. “You don’t drag someone who’s just your buddy into the kitchen, away from prying ears, to argue. Buddies bitch each other out and don’t care who listens. They don’t take their argument to the other room. Husbands and wives do that… lovers do that.” He gave a significant nod.

The response was waved away with a dismissive hand that still held his two splayed playing cards. “Bah, they probably just don’t want us to hear because it’s hospital business.”

Tax Accountant Guy’s eyes rolled. “Sure, hospital business. So that tension between them at the table… you know, the stuff that was so thick you could cut it with a knife? That was hospital business?” His scoff came out as more of a snort. “Hell no. They were fighting because the Oncologist lied. They were fighting because of anger and jealousy. The way that LOVERS do. That was not a buddy fight.”

“He was just mad because the Oncologist was risking his job.” Dry Cleaner Guy retorted. “He wasn’t jealous. Besides, when we made this bet last month it was about whether or not He and the doctor he always talked about were actually screwing. Not about whether or not they argued like girls. This?” his hand copied the motion that Tax Accountant Guy’s had made earlier, flinging in an all encompassing gesture towards the kitchen, “doesn’t mean anything one way or another.”

“So what? The only way I can win this bet is if we actually see them doing it? That’s bullshit.”

“I never said that.” Dry Cleaner Guy replied with a shrug. “But we need more proof than some angry glares and an argument that got dragged to another room.”

“Well what kind of proof will it take?” Tax Accountant Guy asked, perplexed.

“I don’t know.” A wild shrug followed. “Something more than this. Something that screams ‘doing it’.”

Tax Accountant Guy threw his own cards down in disgust then turned to the third man at the poker table who’d been watching the back and forth exchange like a spectator at a tennis match. “What do you think?”

“Hey, leave me out of this.” Guy from the Bus Stop protested weakly. “I never even got in on your stupid bet. I’m just here to play the game.” He looked at the disarray of poker chips and forgotten cards that were strewn over the green felt tabletop and sighed heavily. “Which seems to have been abandoned in favor of arguing whether or not our host and the Oncologist are doing it.”

He might have been about to say more, but was interrupted by said Oncologist storming past them, muttering about the likelihood of never being allowed back again, and out the door. Limping after him, moving slower but no less determinedly, came their host, who made a snarkily dismissive comment about there not being anything worthwhile to steal, and then followed the Oncologist out the door.

After the second slam of the door Tax Accounted Guy crowed. “See, that’s what I’m talking about.” He made air quotes, “’Just Friends’ don’t storm out like that. And ‘Just Friends’ don’t chase after and leave behind a perfectly good poker game! They’re doing it! I told you!” He pointed at Dry Cleaner Guy triumphantly.

Still, though, Dry Cleaner Guy refused to be swayed. “They could have just gotten called to work.” He protested, albeit with less vehemence than had fueled his earlier words. “We don’t even know what they’re fighting about… “

Guy from the Bus Stop sighed again, pushed himself away from the table and then stood. “Let’s just find out and settle this once and for all. I’m lucky to get one night away from home without my wife bitching at me, and I’m in not gonna waste it listening to you two. I wanna play some damn cards.” He walked over to the door of the apartment somewhat cautiously and then leaned his ear against it. His expression tightened as he concentrated on trying to hear what might be going on outside.

From the table Dry Cleaner Guy and Tax Accountant Guy watched him, the former nervously and the latter in gleeful anticipation.

Silence, broken only by the occasional – extremely low and muffled – vocalization from outside, descended on the room as Guy from the Bus Stop remained at his post, ear still pressed flat against the wood. “What’s…” Dry Cleaner Guy started to ask, but was shushed with a hiss of breath and a flapping hand. Still more time ticked by.

Finally, Guy from the Bus Stop pushed himself away from the door. He said nothing as he returned to his seat and picked up his cards. After glancing several times between the cards in his hand and the two cards that lay face up in the middle of the table, he gave a reluctant sigh and let his cards fall. “I fold.” He looked up at Dry Cleaner Guy and shook his head. “Give him the fifty bucks.” Then he turned to Tax Accountant who looked about an eighth of a second away from a celebratory ‘I told you so’. “And that money better make it onto the table, cuz I’m already thirty in the hole.”


End file.
